AAA
Graphic Design, Production
Deliverables:
DIRECT MAIL
Objective:
Develop a new direct mail kit advertising AAA’s auto insurance product.
Objectives to be measured are:
1. increase traffic to the call center 2. drive conversions.
Performance would be weighed against their long-standing control kit. In its 9 year running, no other test kit had outperformed it.
TL;DR — CALL CENTER TRAFFIC INCREASED .08%
OUTPERFORMED 9-YEAR CONTROL KIT
Inside info:
After reviewing the control kit, I came to the conclusion that it had three main problems. First, it was bulky! So many pages. Which leads to the second issue - it was text heavy. The overall layout was wordy with little hierarchy and had zero opportunities to break it up or allow the eyes a rest. And lastly because of the above issues, it was cumbersome to locate the CTA. As a 9-year piece it had generally become stale.
Shortly before their project request, AAA underwent a brand revival. The problems in the control kit were the antithesis of the new brand which was bold, employed a friendly tone of voice, and had easy to navigate layouts. After studying the new brand, the test kit copy was paired down to relay its critical information, given a refreshed layout with imagery and white space, and swapped bland copy for a conversational tone. All of this helped the recipient find the CTA.
Outcome:
An initial run of 100,000 was released resulting in the first ever smash of the control kit! Traffic to the call center was up .08% and a new demographic was discovered. A younger demographic showed interest in their insurance product. As the mailing didn’t discern age, the test and control kit went out to all age groups. The client had been operating on a misaligned understanding of who their target audience was (55+) and the test kit helped them discover a new position in the market. Internal discussions about pricing this demographic were underway leading to a second 100,000 run of the test kit.
